Cafe Fiora

It has been a long time since I have had a chance to sketch for fun.  Today on the way back from a meeting I stopped by Cafe Fiora for lunch and Coffee.  I had never been there before.  It looked like a cool place from the outside and it was really cool from the inside.  It is a place with a lot of atmosphere and character.
One of the participants of the workshop asked me if I draw people or buildings first.  I told them I draw the space first because I can't draw people very well.  So you will always see lines through the people as you see here in this sketch.  The lines disappear visually after you apply watercolor....at least they become less apparent.
I have gotten a bit tight with my sketches and really wanted to just be loose.  So I took the following advice.  "Be loose, be free and be brave!"  Don't worry just sketch......  I liked what I got.

Pike Place Market Sketchcrawl

Sunday was the last day of our Sketching Workshop.  Our group joined forces with Seattle Urban Sketchers.  I think we had between 45-50 sketchers at the Market.  It was wonderful seeing so many sketchers out there sketching and it felt like a celebration when we gathered at the end of the day.  Here is my sketch of Pike Place Market and a link to photos of the group.

Line to Color workshops

Frank Ching and I just finished two workshops. A one day workshop in Mount Vernon and a two day workshop in Seattle. Both were great experiences. Between the two workshops we had people from all parts of Washington state, Vancouver, B.C., Denver, Wyoming, Oregon, Illinois and California. We immediately realized after the first workshop in Mount Vernon that we had too much material to cover effectively in a day, and even a 2 day workshop would not be enough time, but it was too late to change it. We've learned a lot from both experiences and will continue to fine tune it. Thanks to Frank for teaching this with me. It was great and I always learn a lot from him. Thanks to all the participants, both were great groups to work with. Mount Vernon participants' comments were so helpful in modifying the workshop for Seattle. I am already thinking of how we revise this workshop as I read the comments from the Seattle participants.

Spring is finally here!

It has been a long winter.  I think spring has finally sprung.  When we get to this time of year with hot days and beautiful views, we have to grab the outdoor opportunities. This is a view from the hill surrounding Portage Bay.  It is a view I pass through with my friend as we take our walks.  We stop at the top of the hill and look back to catch our breaths.  But this astounding view takes our breath away in a different sense.  How lucky are we to have this in our back yard!  While I was sketching two little girls stopped by to watch me sketch and paint.  They were from the neighborhood.  I told them they were so lucky to be able to see this view every day!

Montlake Cut

Uncropped view

Practicing Values

Practicing value painting.  This was based on a photo Jackie Helfgott posted of a view she saw while running.  The clouds were amazing and the light and shadows created a dramatic scene.  So I used that photo for a composition to practice values and clouds.  The clouds aren't quite right and it is a bit overworked.  I might have to try it again.

Arboretum View

I took the quick sketch I did yesterday as a composition and repainted it with a pencil line sketch under neath so values and color were the only thing to define object, space and light.   This was done with a limited palette of colors.  Greens were mixed from quin gold, aureolin yellow, pthalo blue, ultramarine blue and cobalt teal. Also used quin sienna with ultramarine blue to create browns and shadows.  Quin rose mixed with ultramarine and cobalt teal to get purple and lavendar colors.

Walking in the Arboretum

Along the trail through the Arboretum in Montlake.

After a rainy weekend the sun decided to come out (of course during the workweek).  I took some time to take a short walk in the arboretum today, brought my chair, sketchbook, ink pen and water....then looked for the watercolors and realized I forgot it.  So I jotted down notes where areas were dark, light  or mid tones and painted this from memory once I got home. 

2nd sketch from UVillage 39 WW Sketchcrawl

Looking back past Elemental Wood Fire Pizza Restaurant at U Village.

39th World Wide Sketchcrawl @ UVillage

Saturday Seattle Urban Sketchers gathered for the 39th WW Sketchcrawl, an event happening globally where people take a day to sketch their town or any place they happen to be.  We chose UVillage because we were not quite sure the weather would be with us and there are a lot of overhangs to protect us from the rain.  It was dry but very cold and hard to stay outside with freezing fingers.  We all hung in there.  Here is a sketch from that day and a picture of the group (I will add that later).

Practice 3 Sky

Another 30 minute watercolor practice sketch of sky, clouds and water.  This was done on paper with a little tooth you can see how different the water color takes to the paper if you compare this one with the watercolor practice 2.  Practice 2 was done on paper with a very smooth surface.  Compare this sky with the sky in practice 1.  Practice 1 started with a wash of clear water and then color was added over the wet wash.  Practice 3 sky was done on dry paper giving the hard edges of the clouds.  Additional color was added to give a wet gradation in the under side of the clouds.  I also lifted off color with paper towel to soften the edges at certain places.  The reflection on the beach was done with a clear wash first and then laying in color.

Practice 2 Landscape

Found a small watercolor book at Half Price books. It goes through step by step exercises on building up watercolor landscape paintings in around 20-30 minutes.  I did this one last night.  It took around 30 minutes.  Simple shapes but effective.  Working with loose washes from light to dark and hitting shadow patterns by adding a little indigo to the watercolor to create a darker value of the color.

Practicing

I am reading a watercolor book by watercolorist Robert Wade.  He recommends practicing pages and pages of cloud/sky studies. Here is my first.  Using a wet on wet technique in the cloud area.  Ultramarine blue and a mix of ultramarine blue and quinacridone sienna for the dark area.  This only took 5 minutes total.  Of course there was a wait time between letting the clouds completely dry before putting in  the hills in the foreground.

Urban Farming in Seattle

Getting ready for our trip to Granada and Barcelona, I have been walking through our hilly neighborhood and happened upon this idyllic scene.  On the hill overlooking the Japanese Tea Garden is this quaint urban farm..someones personal vegetable garden.  It is rare to see this much open land in such a dense part of the city.  It was such a nice sunny Easter day, I just had to take a walk and capture this.

View under the Net

This was the view almost under the net.  You can see how it spanned the whole room.  What was tricky to represent was the netting itself.  It created a transparent veil that was white -off white.  This made it difficult because our pens draw in black. So I tried to suggest the veil with the lighter washed out colors  as if you are looking through something.

Emerald City Trapeze Arts

Yesterday Seattle Urban Sketchers group went to the Emerald City Trapeze Arts studio to sketch aerial arts and flying trapeze classes.  What an exciting outing.  We saw both adult and children getting up enough nerve to swing on the flying trapeze.  I can imagine the adrenaline going!Here is one sketch from the day from above.  I used the the second floor mezzanine as a foreground element.  It was visually darker in this space so it created a great dark frame.    The mid ground was where the trapeze class was taking place had the brightest light.  The bright color of the instructor's and student's leotards becomes the focus of the drawing and draws attention to the activity in the mid-ground.

Urban sketchers sketching the flying trapeze class.

Sketch along the way home

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day in Seattle. I decided to walk home from grading at the UW.  This is the view I get while crossing the Montlake Bridge.  I decided to do it in pencil instead of my typical ink. I could have spent more time on this but it was a quick one.  I will try to go out again and do an ink and watercolor sketch.

Line to Color Workshop in Seattle

Workshop Description and Registration Information
Announcing Line to Color Workshop in Seattle:  May 17-19, 2013.  All levels welcome!

Botanical sketches At Cafe Louvre in Edmonds

Tonight is the Edmonds Art Walk.  I have a few of my Botanical  paintings up at Cafe Louvre.  Come by to see them!
Cafe Louvre: 210 5th Ave S #101 Edmonds, WA 98020‎

Line to Color Workshop April 27th, 2013

http://glwsketchworks.blogspot.com/p/workshops-and-events.html

 
Note Date Change for this workshop: 
Saturday April 27th 2013,  Frank Ching and I will be giving a one day workshop in Mount Vernon, WA. We will also be giving a more developed workshop in Seattle over a 3 day period in May (TBA).
These workshops will focus on the process of building up a sketch from the line to final color.
We will  introduce  the concepts of perspective, composition and approaches to watercolor values to bring out a sketch.  All levels are welcome.  See link above for more information.

Historic Ballard Alley

Last Friday we had a small group of urban sketchers get together to sketch in Old Historic Ballard.  We had a visitor from Vermont join us who is new to Urban Sketchers.  She had heard of us and was interested in joining us to for a sketch outing.

I found this old alley between two historic buildings and started by doing some quick value studies then a watercolor value study before starting the sketch.  It helped me visualize values and simplify colors.
See studies below.

Garfield High School Orchestra Winter Waltz 2013

I have sketched at the Garfield  High School Winter Waltz for the past 3 years, ever since my son started playing with the Orchestra.  This year he didn't, but I love to hear the music so we went again.  I have never sketched the orchestra itself.  They are in a corner of the hall and because of the dance floor it is difficult to get in a good position to sketch them.  This year I went on the second floor balcony and found a spot that look directly down on them.  This is Marcus Tsutakawa, Orchestra teacher leading his orchestra.   What a wonderful event!

Final Touches

So this is not considered a "true urban sketch"  because it was not fully done on site.  Sometimes we just don't have time to finish a sketch.  Do you rush to finish it... just to call it an urban sketch?  Or do you take a picture and finish it later.  I opted to finish it later.  Winter Waltz final touches.

Value and Color study

Here are some quick sketches I did of value and color for the winter waltz final touches.  They are about 2x3 and done in 5 minutes.  They are just to help me visualize where the values are and how the colors will work. 

Winter Waltz 2013

A couple of weeks ago we attended the Garfield High School Orchestra's Winter Waltz at Benaroya Hall.  This is the third year I have gone.  It is always such a wonderful time, an opportunity to listen to great waltz music in an amazing venue and  have a glass of wine, dessert, dance and sketch.  This year we did not dance but I sketched.  I was able to do two sketches. This is the last sketch I did with the first pass of light washes.  I wasn't able to complete it on site but will show the final version tomorrow.

Final Stage: Darks

The final pass in this watercolor sketch was to hit the pendant light with a dark wash to separate it from the background.  I made a very dark wash and applied it to the bottom and left side of the light  to reinforce the direction of light and shade.
When it was still wet I dipped my brush directly in ultramarine blue and hit the left side of the base of the light...adding a very deep tone.

The contrast in value is what will create spatial depth in a fairly flat drawing.

Second Stage: Midtones

Yesterday I talked about the first stage which was to apply light washes and leave some white highlights. What I kept white were areas that received the most light or were giving off light, like that of the lamp's light source.
In this scan of the sketch, I have applied the midtone values.  The glass within the tracery was actually dark and the metal frame work around each glass pane appeared white.  To capture this, I prepared a wash that had a consistency of coffee rather than tea.  I applied this darker wash with a smaller brush so I could just paint in the areas of the glass and leave areas between each pane the background color  to suggest the framework around the glass.  In reality each pane had a slightly different appearance so some panes received an additional pass to darken the value. I then added the same wash to the bottom of the lamp and to the left side that was in shade. I then dipped my brush in water and to the wash to apply a lighter wash to the shaded side of the columns. Finally I prepared a light  red tone to the upper portion of the arch to imply the wall and ceiling color.

First Stage: Light washes

The first stage of this watercolor was applying very wet light washes.  I do it with a big brush that holds a lot of water.  I keep the pigment very light...like the value of light tea.  you can also apply a little more color in the wet areas while it is still wet to get interesting wet on wet effects. But what is also very important is to save those areas of white.  That will add sparkle to the watercolor later.
It is hard to truly regain white areas once it is painted.

Suzzallo Library January Sketch Outing

Last week we went to Suzzallo Library on the UW campus and sketched for our January sketch outing.  It is a beautiful Collegiate Gothic Library built in 1926 by architects Charles Bebb and Carl F. Gould.  The reading room is 250' long, 52' wide and a breathtaking 65' tall. 

I chose to sketch a detail from the library... the lights with the soaring walls behind it.  I finished sketching it but didn't have time to watercolor it on site.  This was an opportunity to show the stages of the inkline watercolor process.

Here is my first stage.  The inkline sketch.  ( I had already laid the first light washes over it, using photoshop I took out the color...this is close to what I originally started with.)  Second stage tomorrow.

Inkline Stage

Sketching at Volunteer Park Conservatory

Today I took a walk up the hill to Volunteer Park on a sunny crisp winter morning.  I went into the Conservatory at Volunteer Park to sketch the orchids on display.  Beautiful specimens.  It was hard to get the back and side lighting happening.  This may have been too small a sketch to accomplish that successfully.

Paperwhites Part 2

Here is the completed watercolor of the paperwhites.  I started by doing the bowl the paperwhites were sitting in but that really took away from the focus of the flowers so I ended up painting everything to pop out the white of the flowers. Ultimately I should have worked light to dark building up the watercolor altogether. Yarka Semi Moist Pan Paints.